“Seventeen years on the same street, and the whole neighborhood was still whispering about us behind our backs,” he said in voiceover, before being relieved to discover that his wife Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross) was on the same page.
The move brought back a flood of nostalgia about all that the couple had experienced and push-back from their kids, who understandably felt some reluctance about leaving the only home they’d known.
For all that, the network and producers probably did the show no favors by overly milking its success, spinning off the Freeform series “grown-ish” and short-lived prequel “mixed-ish.”
Still, the most resonant note actually came at the very end, which showed a young Latinx couple moving into the Johnsons’ house, filled with similar hopes and thoughts of achieving the American dream — right before that reverie is snapped, just as Dre’s was, by an awkwardly bigoted interaction with the nosy next-door neighbor played by Nicole Sullivan.
It was a reminder that life goes on and issues persist, even if long-running sitcoms periodically come to an end. While the finale was until then sweet and sentimental, perhaps appropriately given Biles’ presence, that sequence helped “black-ish” stick the landing.
